Adeleke Meets Tinubu As 2027 Politics Heat Up
Governor Ademola Adeleke’s closed door meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Thursday has drawn intense political attention, coming only five days after his re-election and at the very moment national alliances are being rearranged for the 2027 general elections.
Adeleke arrived at the State House at about 5:20pm and went straight to the President’s office, in what was the first known meeting between the two men at the Villa since the governor’s victory. The engagement followed a congratulatory call from the President after the poll. Tinubu had described the outcome as “a fitting assurance that democracy will continue to flourish”, and urged the governor to unite residents regardless of how they voted. Adeleke was accompanied by the Director-General of his campaign council, Senator Lere Oyewumi, his Chief of Staff, Akinleye Kazeem, and other aides.
The optics are striking. Adeleke won on the platform of the Accord Party, yet the Accord presidential candidate, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, joined counterparts from the African Action Congress and the Social Democratic Party in Port Harcourt on 17 August to build a common front against Tinubu ahead of 2027. A friendly reception at the Villa for an Accord governor, while his party’s national flag bearer courts the opposition, underlines how fluid party loyalty remains in Nigeria, where state level survival often outweighs party lines. Adeleke had contested under Accord after defecting from the Peoples Democratic Party, whose Osun chapter nonetheless adopted his candidacy and mobilised its structures behind him.
The scale of his win frames the moment. The Independent National Electoral Commission declared Adeleke winner on Sunday after he polled 511,067 votes against 444,815 for the All Progressives Congress candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, with Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress third on 17,180. Of 1,005,800 votes cast, 985,079 were valid and 20,721 rejected. Adeleke carried 19 of the state’s 30 local government areas to Oyebamiji’s 11, a margin of 66,252 votes.
That represents a consolidation rather than a repeat. In 2022, Adeleke won on the PDP platform with 402,979 votes to Gboyega Oyetola’s 375,077, taking 17 councils. The result was overturned by an election petition tribunal in January 2023 before higher courts restored him to office. His wider spread and larger margin this time leave less room for the litigation that shadowed his first term.
The victory has not been without cost. While receiving his certificate of return in Osogbo on Wednesday, Adeleke announced a N500 million Election Violence Victims Endowment Fund for families affected by pre-election violence, to be overseen by a committee chaired by the Speaker of the State Assembly, Adewale Egbedun. “In grief, there is no political party,” he said, naming victims including Ezekiel Olapade and Aderogba Ajayi. The pledge followed a peace accord that Adeleke, Oyebamiji and other candidates signed in July. Hours after the certificate ceremony, gunfire near the Ataoja of Osogbo’s palace left a 60-year-old man dead, an incident police have linked to a cult confrontation targeting the governor’s nephew, the musician Davido.
The Tinubu meeting has also drawn criticism. The Nigeria Reset Movement, through its spokesman David Jones in a statement issued in Awka on Thursday, accused Adeleke of betraying supporters by reaffirming backing for Tinubu, noting that he had for months warned against alleged federal interference in the poll. The group also faulted the governor for not addressing election related deaths in his victory speech. Neither the Presidency nor the governor’s office disclosed the agenda of the Villa meeting, and no party switch has been confirmed.
The engagement fits a wider pattern. Tinubu received Oyetola, now Marine and Blue Economy minister and Adeleke’s predecessor, at the Villa on 18 August, a day before INEC’s official start of 2027 campaigns. Earlier in the year, opposition figures including Oyo Governor Seyi Makinde held separate consultations with the President.
What is confirmed is that an opposition governor has opened a direct line to the President weeks into a charged campaign season. Whether that translates into realignment, cooperation on Osun’s development, or nothing beyond protocol will only become clear as 2027 approaches. For now, the meeting stands as a marker of how quickly Nigeria’s political map is being redrawn.